It’s late October, when seas outside the tropics are supposed to be falling into a winter chill. So what is a “super” hurricane doing approaching the northeastern United States and strengthening as it’s crossing the mid-latitude waters of the Atlantic Ocean?
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There’s weather (today’s temperature, this week’s forecast for Houston) and there’s climate (the average U.S. temperature in 2006, average global temperature in 2100). Scientists, generally, are careful not to mix the two. For example, a hotter-than-normal summer in Houston cannot entirely be blamed on climate change, any more than a cold February can be used […]
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Ice is a hot topic in the climate science community right now so let’s talk about it. ARCTIC SEA ICE First, the Arctic sea ice reached a record low extent this summer since satellite monitoring began, falling to 1.32 million square miles according to the National Snow & Ice Data Center. The previous record low, […]
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After the blistering temperatures during 2011, and the relatively mild summer of 2012, you’d never guess that Houston has had a warmer overall temperature this year. But through August, it has, says Charles Roeseler of the National Weather Service. The city’s average temperature through August is 74.3 degrees, which is 0.4 degrees higher than the […]
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The top of the world is melting — this summer pretty much proves that. Now, some may question whether the melting is being driven by human activity, or primarily a natural variation. Scientists, including many of whom work for the agency that just put a 1-ton rover on Mars, fully believe it’s the former. But […]
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Interesting Sunday in the world of climate change. First came an op-ed in the New York Times from University of California, Berkeley scientist Richard Muller: Call me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, […]
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What does this mean? Well, GenerationX is now moving into leadership positions in this country. Only 23 percent of their peers, according to this survey, are interested in seeing significant action taken on this issue.

This doesn’t exactly provide a political mandate for legislation to reduce carbon emissions any time soon.